A Windy Day for ThunderClan
by Steve the Icecube
Summary: Berrynose hates her. She took away his first mate. And now he has to take her out for her excercises. What happens when the wind gets stronger and neither can continue? AU from Fading Echoes and onwards.


**AN: I do not do this my choice. It will suck. Just saying. This is a crack pairing. Of Berrynose and Briarlight.**

3rd Person POV

It was a usual, if breezy, day in ThunderClan. Well, not _that _usual. Berrynose was looking mournfully at the entrance to camp, wishing he could hunt with Poppyfrost. But no. The cripple needed walking.

And Berrynose had to take her.

The stupid cat who crippled herself _and _killed Honeyfern.

"Come on." He growled at the brown she-cat. Millie glared at him from across camp. He ignored her and left. The eyes on his cream fur burned into his pelt, making him feel uncomfortable. "Would you stop staring?" He snapped at the young she-cat.

"Oh, sorry." She replied sweetly. "I just was wondering how you lost that part of your tail..." She was swishing her tail at this point, the only part of her back that remained active.

"Fine, I'll tell you. But no one is to know of this!" The arrogant tom snapped, swirling around. As his bright amber eyes met Briarlight's gentle orange ones, he smiled. "Come on. Let's get out of this breeze."

* * *

A few minutes later, the two cats sat in a clearing, sheltered from the wind but shivering as it howled around the trees. Briarlight looked terrified, and sat closer to Berrynose, their fur brushing, but now both were warm. "Well, it started when I was determined to persuade Daisy to stay in ThunderClan, by trying to make her see ThunderClan needed me.

I went out of camp to hunt, seen by no one. I was stalking a mouse, and suddenly I was swept off my feet by a force catching my tail. It hurt so much, and I surmised that it was a fox trap like the one Spiderleg nearly got caught in.

There was a loud jeering behind me, and it wasn't ThunderClan. It turned out to be ShadowClan. They just left me suffering. That's against the warrior code, you know.

Squirrelflight found me and dug the trap up, but my tail fell off in the night. Brightheart buried it, I'm told."

"Wow..." Said Briarlight. "You're really brave, Berrynose. That must have hurt so much! Having your tail off... Didn't you worry about being named Lost-tail, like Brightheart was named Lostface?"

"Firestar isn't cruel like that. He is very soft, though. I worried about being named Berrystumpytail when I was an apprentice, though I'm annoyed my tail didn't get a mention. It's like an apprentice being amazingly brave and getting the name Greyfur. I was brave that day."

"Of course you were! That is so unfair!" Briarlight purred, and without noticing, their tails twined, cream with brown, as they sat there in silence.

* * *

_3 moons later..._

"Berrynose, just go in!" Jayfeather sounded annoyed, and had full right to be. Berrynose was pacing and being very noisy, anxious to go in. Berrynose, for once, was respectful and nodded his head to Jayfeather as he went in.

Lying in a nest, looking exhausted but joyful, was Briarlight. It was thought by Jayfeather that Briarlight was infertile due to her injury, but it was proved wrong when she became pregnant with Berrynose's kits. Berrynose smiled at his mate and sat down next to her and licked her head gently. Lying next to her were two kits. A brown tom and a silver and black tabby tom with a long tail, from what could be seen of the tiny kit curled in a ball next to his mother.

"What are they called?" Berrynose asked sweetly.

"I thought we'd name them together." Briarlight smiled.

"Well," the tom said, pointing his tail at the brown one "How about Snakekit?"

Briarlight looked horrified "No! I won't-"

Berrynose smiled and chuckled lightly. "I was joking. So, maybe Mudkit?"

"Or Oakkit?"

"Sure, that's a nice name. Oakkit." He tapped Oakkit on the head with his tail. "And the next... Longkit?"

Briarlight gasped "You'd name him that? After a blind warrior who moaned a lot?"

"Of course, if that's okay with you."

Briarlight smiled. "Of course it is." It was a purely magic moment for the two. Lying in the nursery together, their kits next to them, both, though unknowingly for one of the kits, named after great warriors.

Another she-cat, a tortoiseshell and white cat, looked in jealously at the couple. Had she not shared those magical moments with him once? She had loved him for a long time, longer than Briarlight, longer than his former mate, Honeyfern.

And she was just shunned for another, albiet nicer cat when the time came...


End file.
